


The Name Game

by LexLemon



Series: I’ll Build a World Around You [2]
Category: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)
Genre: Cliff’s a nerd, Dialogue Heavy, Domestic Fluff, I do not share the same feelings about them that Rick and Cliff do, M/M, Rick’s very picky, Sorry if any of the names they reject are your actual name, Writing characters when they’re drunk is my favorite thing to write, baby naming, first-time parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LexLemon/pseuds/LexLemon
Summary: Rick and Cliff try to pick out names for their future daughter. It’s just going to take a lot longer than they expected it to.
Relationships: Cliff Booth/Rick Dalton
Series: I’ll Build a World Around You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852639
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	The Name Game

**Author's Note:**

> I put this disclaimer in the tags, but I do want to apologize if any of the names Rick and Cliff reject in this story are your actual name. I just looked up the most popular baby girl names in 1971 and picked ones that stuck out to me. I promise I don’t share the same sentiments that they do. Anyway, enjoy!

“ _Oooo, babe, you set my soul on fire._

_That’s why I know you are my only desire._

_Oooo, baby, here I am._

_Signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.”_

Rick Dalton practically jumped out of his car once his boyfriend, Cliff Booth, turned the engine off in their driveway. His smile stretched from ear to ear as he raced up his front stoop, an exhilarated laugh escaping his throat with each step.

Cliff stepped out of the driver's seat of the yellow Cadillac and watched Rick with a laugh of his own. He couldn't deny that the pure joy his boyfriend was feeling was beginning to seep into him as well. Of course, he had been feeling it on the drive home too. He was just better at hiding it. But seeing Rick be so happy about it just made it all the more better.

Cliff followed Rick into the house and watched as he ran into the middle of the living room.

"Can you believe it, Cliff?" he asked. "We're havin' a girl."

"Yeah, we sure are."

"We're havin' a daughter. Our very own baby girl that we're goin' to love for the rest of our lives, and we get to keep her! Oh, God dammit, Cliff, we're havin' a girl."

"I know, I know," Cliff said with a chuckle.

It wasn't long before he felt Rick's hands clasp themselves around his cheeks and pull him in for a deep kiss. Sinking into it, he wrapped his arms around Rick and pushed him deeper into his face. Rick then let go and began pacing about the living room, his arms flying about his person.

"We can start p-p-p-paintin' the nursery now and decorate it with a bunch of shit for a girl a-and buy some dresses for her. Shit, Cliff, this is great!" Rick spotted their pit bull, Brandy, lying on the couch beside him, looking between the two men with a curious gaze. He bent down to pet her and said, "You're goin' to have a new little girl to play with soon, Brandy girl."

"Alright, partner," Cliff said. "There's still one thing to consider with all this."

"What's that?"

"What are we going to name her?"

Rick whipped his head over to Cliff with wide eyes. He stood back up but soon flopped into his armchair, his body almost sinking into it.

"Shit...a name. I hadn't even th-thought of that."

"It's a pretty important part."

"I mean I haven't even thought of that at all. I-I-I always pictured myself havin' a son." Rick leaned forward and let his eyes gloss over in a daze, a dreamy smile on his face. "Little Billy Dalton. Yeah, I always thought he'd be the one. But now, we got a girl to think about. Shit, what do you name a girl?"

Cliff was about to suggest that Billy could also be a girl's name, but _her_ voice entered his head, leading him to keep his mouth shut.

After a moment, Rick sat up and shrugged. "You know, I've always had Maribella a-at the back of my mind."

"Maribella?" Cliff let out a quick laugh. "Where'd you pull that out of?"

"Well, you remember the _Lancer_ pilot I did last year?"

"Yeah."

Of course Cliff remembered. TV Guide had paraded it as "Rick Dalton's Finest Hour," and Cliff couldn't agree more.

Rick said, "Well, the little girl I worked with. I found out later that h-h-her name was Trudi, but her character was Maribella. She introduced herself as Maribella to me too. And let me tell you, she was fantastic. One of the best people I've ever worked with. So I've just...always remembered her, you know? Maribella Lancer."

Cliff let the name swim around his head for a moment, his lips scrunched up in thought. He tilted his head from side to side before shrugging.

"I think that'd be a good middle name."

Rick hummed to himself as he thought it over. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I don't see it workin' as a first name."

"Nah." Cliff began making his way towards the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, pulling out a Chattanooga Beer can for himself. "And we'd probably be calling her Mary or Bella anyway, and I don't dig those as names."

"Nah, me neither."

"Alright, that's two names out of the way."

"Yeah, two that we don't fuckin' want." Rick sighed. "We need somethin' we do want, Cliff."

Returning to the living room, Cliff sat adjacent to Rick on the couch and sputtered in thought. He eventually threw up his arms when the first girl name he could think of popped into his head.

"Elizabeth?"

Rick scoffed. "Absolutely not."

"What? Why not?"

"'Cause everyone's fuckin' named Elizabeth 'round here."

"Come on-"

"I'm serious. Whether i-i-i-it's Liz, Lizzie, Betty, Beth. It's all fuckin' Elizabeth."

Cliff let out a whistle as he looked at his lap. "Okay then. Not Elizabeth."

Rick sighed as he looked around the room, his eyes settling on the _Jigsaw_ _Jane_ poster above the TV. "Jane?"

Cliff sneered at his boyfriend. "Come on."

"What?"

"We can do better than that."

"Oh, sure. Says the guy who just suggested Elizabeth two fuckin' minutes ago."

"It's better than Jane."

"Yeah, right."

~

"Rick."

Rick's eyes flew open as he lay in bed that night, Cliff's whispered voice tickling into his ear. He turned over and squinted to see Cliff looking at him on his side.

"What?" he asked in a groggy voice.

"What about Jennifer?"

"J...Jennifer?"

"Yeah. For the baby. We could call her Jenny."

Rick groaned to himself as he turned back over. "No."

"Why not?"

“Jennifer's got no character to it."

Cliff frowned to himself as he turned back over. Unable to hide the disappointment in his voice, he mumbled, "No character?"

~

Cliff ran over to the ringing wall telephone the next day, leaning against the post as he pressed the receiver to his ear.

"Dalton residence. Cliff Booth speaking," he said. He figured that was the best way to answer the phone when Rick was working in case it was an important casting director on the other line who wanted to speak to him. He didn't want to disappoint them outright.

Instead of an unfamiliar voice on the other line, Cliff was surprised to hear Rick's saying, "Tammy."

Cliff scrunched up his face. "Tammy?"

"For the baby."

Even though he couldn't see it, Cliff hoped Rick could feel his glare through the phone. "Rick, you're calling me at work to give me baby names?"

"I-I-I ain't filmin' right now. Listen, I was tellin' th-the wardrobe girl 'bout this, and she thought Tammy would be good. I kind of like it."

"We're not naming her Tammy."

"Really? You don't think it's cute?"

"No, actually, I don't. It's actually kind of gross."

"Fine. Be fuckin' picky."

Cliff heard the line click on the other end, bringing him to hang up his own receiver. He shook his head as he made his way to the living room, taking a large breath.

"Out of every name, he likes Tammy..."

~

"What about Shannon?" Cliff asked as he drove Rick home from work that day.

"Shannon?"

"Yeah."

Rick furrowed his lips before turning to the window with a sigh. "See, Shannon would be nice, b-but it sounds too much like Sharon. That'll be confusin' for 'em."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, i-i-it's too much. But tell you what, if worst comes to worst and we still don't got anythin', we'll do Shannon."

"You like Shannon?"

Rick saw the hopeful smile on Cliff's face and felt a pang in his heart. He took a breath before answering, "I-I don't hate it."

"Hey, fine by me."

Cliff tapped his hands against the steering wheel as he stared at the road ahead. "He doesn't hate it," he said in a quiet voice, a sliver of pride creeping through.

~

"What 'bout...What 'bout Nicole?" a completely drunk Rick asked that night as he sat in the back of a dark restaurant.

Cliff, who was at the same level of intoxication, blew out his lips with a goofy smile. "Nicole?"

"Yeah."

"Nah. That...That's fucking...lame."

"It ain't lame! It ain't lame. Nicole's a f-fine name."

"Okay, it...it's good. But it's not...it's not the best name ever, you know?"

"Well, it's better than fuckin'...Christina."

"Christina's nice!"

"It's too nice! Too goddamn nice of a name. Uh uh."

"We could call her Christy."

"No, Cliff."

~

"Sandra?" Rick asked as they pulled into the driveway, both men sobered up from dinner.

Cliff replied, "Mmmm, I don't know."

Rick threw back his head with a groan. "We can't keep fuckin' doin' this, Cliff."

The two men stepped out of the car and made their way up to the door, Rick huffing and puffing with each step. Once he unlocked the door, he stepped inside and made his way towards the couch.

"Our baby can't go through life without a goddamn name that we both like. She needs somethin'! There's just too many fuckin' names out there."

"Hey, come on." Cliff made his way over to him and sat beside him, wrapping his arm around him. "Rick, we have plenty of time to figure this out. This isn't something we have to decide on right now. I know you want it to be perfect. I do too. The perfect girl needs the perfect name."

Rick sniffled. "You're goddamn right she does."

"Yeah. But we'll figure it out. It'll come to us. We just have to take our time, babe. That's all."

Rick turned to look at Cliff, color returning to his face once he saw those soft, deep blue eyes staring back at him. As peace entered his body, he allowed a smile onto his face while sagging his shoulders.

"I guess you're right. We don't...We don't got to think about this right now."

"Yeah. Right now, it's just you and me. So let's celebrate that while we still can."

"Oh, absolutely." Rick gave Cliff a quick kiss before standing back up and making his way across the floor. "I think we could use a little music right now," he said.

Cliff said, "I couldn't agree more."

Rick fiddled with the dials on his radio before settling on KHJ, letting the sounds of a bouncy pop song echo through the house.

” _Tracy, you’re gonna be_

_Happy with me._

_I’ll build a world around you.”_

Cliff felt a jolt enter his body, as if everything snapped into place. "What about that?"

Rick looked at him with wide eyes. "What?"

"Tracy."

Rick looked down at his feet and tapped his finger against his chin. "Tracy's pretty good."

"Right?"

"Yeah."

A smile grew on Rick's face as he started pacing back and forth. "Yeah, i-it's cute, not too much, you don't hear it too often, it sounds good w-with Maribella-"

"And you'll always be cool when you're named Tracy. I mean, look at Dick Tracy. That guy's the best."

"Oh, yeah. Can't forget 'bout Dick Tracy. Yeah...Tracy Maribella Dalton. I think this could work, Cliff."

"We found a name."

"We found a fuckin' name for our baby!" Rick let out a laugh as he ran to Cliff, throwing his arms around him. He pressed his cheek to his shoulder and let out a sigh. "We're startin' a family, Cliff."

Cliff found himself tearing up at his words, bringing him to squeeze him tighter. "Yeah. Yeah, we are."

Cliff couldn't always believe that this was his life now. He'd found the one person he loved more than anything, and they were starting a family together. Now that their baby had a name, their family could really begin.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs referenced:
> 
> “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours”-Stevie Wonder: https://youtu.be/WvRwR-hZDVY
> 
> “Tracy”-The Cufflinks: https://youtu.be/Cwv8KNJ0VZg


End file.
